Excerpt from Psychology of the Normal and Subnormal The writer was once asked in what work he was engaged. When he replied, "Psychology," he was met by the remark, "Do you believe in that stuff? I used to, but I became convinced that it was all a fake." It turned out that to this man psychology meant hypnotism. This is a fair illustration of one of the many different connotations the term psychology has in the popular mind. It is unfortunate that a science of such fundamental importance for human welfare should be so little understood. Psychology is the science of mind; and mind determines human conduct. It would seem therefore highly desirable that the science of mind should be so formulated as to contribute to useful behaviour. Geology is of value to civilization in that it enables man not only to understand the earth's history but also to build, to mine, to cultivate it intelligently, in short to use the earth efficiently.

Zoology enables us to know the nature of animals and to use them for our purposes. Likewise psychology should enable us to understand the nature of mental processes and to use that knowledge to improve our behaviour and to increase our efficiency. Psychology should enable us to control our conduct both thru our understanding of ourselves and thru an understanding of the motives and actions of others. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy.

In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.